One of my biggest pet peeves in life is when people who are in positions of power look down on anyone they deem "below" them. This is a topic I get very upset about for many reasons. I was taught by my parents that everyone should be treated equally not matter the color of their skin, the size of their bank account or the country they call home. Because of how I was raised, I would like to say that I am not prejudiced or judgmental but that would be a lie..I definitely have a prejudice against people in positions of power that abuse it and people who have money and act as if they are better than everyone because of it. Something happens to the ego when one gains power - it explodes. In yoga and meditation, we are taught to let go of the ego and connect to our higher selves - ego is destructive and earth bound - lack of ego is a connection to our divine side. This resonates with me so powerfully because I have seen the path of destruction ego can create. It is blinding. I am dealing with a particular situation in my current job that is causing me to reflect on this topic. My job title of fitness receptionist is definitely below my skill level but as I have shared here before, I am doing this for health reasons as well as to keep our family afloat while my husband is out of work. Doing a job with less responsibility than I have ever had is helping me manage my stress and sanity levels but at a cost. That cost is being witness to the deep prejudice and judgement people hold about class status. The upper level management believe they are royalty and by default, I am a member of the peasant class. They sit on their thrones and eat grapes while I beg for scraps and repeatedly get kicked and beaten. Most of them assume I am uneducated and poor. Half of that is true but I probably have more education and a higher IQ than 90% of them. No, not probably, definitely. Witness a conversation between me and the head of development that took place this week:
Her: "We have a big event coming up this week! Are you ready?" (we have a children s charity event on Saturday that all employees are required to go to)
Me: "yup."
Her: "Do you remember what job you signed up for?"
Me: "yup"
Her: "What is it?"
Me: "Assisting the kids to the locker rooms."
Her: "That's so great. You will get to be around the kids. Isn't that so great?"
Now you may not think that this is so bad but I do not have audio here and so I can't accurately convey the tone of this conversation. Lets just say that I am 5 and she is my kindergarten teacher asking me if I have to use the potty. Oh and she doesn't know my name. I should have said, "you know I am 40 years old, used to run a very prestigious kids program, graduated from a better university than you but got kicked in the balls by life so lets stop with the condescending crap."
That would have been awesome right? Too bad I bite my tongue every day so I don't get fired. Sometimes I think that it might be totally worth it though. I also had a run in with the executive director this week. She exudes an air of bullshit. You know these people right? Every word out of her mouth is fake. Oh and she makes $300,000 a year. This gives her the right to say anything she wants. When a co-worker who I also consider a friend returned from a 6 week absence to care for her dying father, the executive director said to her, "Well, at least you lost weight while you were gone." She puts the phrase, "Putting your foot in your mouth" to shame - her whole leg and part of her torso was up in there on that one. Every time she comes near my desk, she has a criticism about the way the tissue box is angled or the towels are stacked or any number of random innocuous comments that in the grand scheme of life amount to nothing more than a grain of sand. Anyway, I have a TV near my desk that plays promotional videos all day. I keep the sound off because the music is really obnoxious and part of my job involves talking to people and answering phones and that is really hard to do when shitty loud music is blaring near my ears. A couple of times she has made comments about me not having the sound on but I dismissed her. She also has a way of speaking to me as if I spilled milk all over my desk and am too dim to know how to clean it up. I guess it was really bugging her that I kept ignoring her requests so instead of just telling me like a normal person that I need to have the sound on, she sent my boss an email telling her I am not allowed to keep the sound off anymore despite the members complaints about it and despite the fact that it inhibits my job performance. You an see I am surrounded by utter brilliance in my work environment!
In every job I have ever had, I have made it a point to become friends with the "lower class." In the restaurant where I waited tables, I was buddies with the kitchen staff , in the schools, I was friends with all the janitors, in the gyms I hung out with the maintenance and housekeeping staff. I found these people to be the most humble, wise, well rounded people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. It makes my blood boil when I see them treated so poorly by management. Just because they are not educated the same way or brought up the same way our culture has someone deemed them less than. Some of the most intelligent people I have ever met in my life never went to college. My Dad being one of them. Conversely, some people I have met in my life that have multiple degrees are some of the most ignorant. This is why I try never to generalize. As a society we are so quick to label and judge. What gives people the right to do this to fellow humans? We are all born into this world the same way and eventually we will all take an exit out of this world. What we do in between is subject to so much scrutiny. I was reading an article in "The Economist" about the relationship between ego and power and many people who gain positions of power do indeed start feeling as if they are better than everyone else and that the laws don't apply to them. Hence politicians who are caught with their pants down, don't truly believe they did anything wrong. Bill Clinton adamantly did NOT have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.
I wonder how many of these people who abuse their power were raised in poor households or households with strong morals and values about equality. I would like to believe that if I ever suddenly became powerful and very rich, I would still treat people the same as I always have but I can't really know or can I? Do I know myself well enough to feel confident that no matter the circumstances of my life, I will stay intrinsically the same? I've never seen that show, "Undercover Boss" but the concept is great and I think every executive should step into the shoes of their underlings once in a while to see what life is like in the trenches of their company. It would bring some much needed perspective into our world.God, I would LOVE to see my executive director do my job for a day - even an hour and watch her field complaints from members about the fans blowing in the wrong direction or the water in the fountain is not cold enough or the toilets don't flush properly. She would suck at it and it would be sweet justice for me to see her struggle.
I feel so grateful to have been through so much in my life up until this point because all of my experiences taught me how to be humble and graceful (at least sometimes). If I had only known comfort and stability I would be a very different person and definitely not so emphatic or aware. I like the part of me that has many friends from many backgrounds and cultures and races. My Facebook page looks like the UN and I'm proud of that. If you only talk to and are friends with like minded people, you are missing out on so much richness of life. I have learned so much from my friendships and relationships with those outside of my own race and culture and class. I don't know if its fear that holds us back from expanding out of our comfort zone but we should all do it to gain deeper understanding and compassion for our fellow humans. We are all in this messy, beautiful life together and instead of turning inward all the time, we should turn outward and try to help each other. I know that sounds very simplistic and naive but aren't the best things in life the simple things? We complicate life so much when we don't have to. I am guilty of this. I torment myself with every decision I make and for what? I must have been a seriously tortured soul in my former lives because I am an expert at it. I have such a strong sense of fairness and justice and equality that I sometimes think its a curse. I never feel like I am doing enough to change things for the better not only for myself but for the world. I think I just need to have a few glasses of wine and relax and take the weight of the world off my shoulders for a while. Or go to Costa Rica and build houses for poor people.
Her: "We have a big event coming up this week! Are you ready?" (we have a children s charity event on Saturday that all employees are required to go to)
Me: "yup."
Her: "Do you remember what job you signed up for?"
Me: "yup"
Her: "What is it?"
Me: "Assisting the kids to the locker rooms."
Her: "That's so great. You will get to be around the kids. Isn't that so great?"
Now you may not think that this is so bad but I do not have audio here and so I can't accurately convey the tone of this conversation. Lets just say that I am 5 and she is my kindergarten teacher asking me if I have to use the potty. Oh and she doesn't know my name. I should have said, "you know I am 40 years old, used to run a very prestigious kids program, graduated from a better university than you but got kicked in the balls by life so lets stop with the condescending crap."
That would have been awesome right? Too bad I bite my tongue every day so I don't get fired. Sometimes I think that it might be totally worth it though. I also had a run in with the executive director this week. She exudes an air of bullshit. You know these people right? Every word out of her mouth is fake. Oh and she makes $300,000 a year. This gives her the right to say anything she wants. When a co-worker who I also consider a friend returned from a 6 week absence to care for her dying father, the executive director said to her, "Well, at least you lost weight while you were gone." She puts the phrase, "Putting your foot in your mouth" to shame - her whole leg and part of her torso was up in there on that one. Every time she comes near my desk, she has a criticism about the way the tissue box is angled or the towels are stacked or any number of random innocuous comments that in the grand scheme of life amount to nothing more than a grain of sand. Anyway, I have a TV near my desk that plays promotional videos all day. I keep the sound off because the music is really obnoxious and part of my job involves talking to people and answering phones and that is really hard to do when shitty loud music is blaring near my ears. A couple of times she has made comments about me not having the sound on but I dismissed her. She also has a way of speaking to me as if I spilled milk all over my desk and am too dim to know how to clean it up. I guess it was really bugging her that I kept ignoring her requests so instead of just telling me like a normal person that I need to have the sound on, she sent my boss an email telling her I am not allowed to keep the sound off anymore despite the members complaints about it and despite the fact that it inhibits my job performance. You an see I am surrounded by utter brilliance in my work environment!
In every job I have ever had, I have made it a point to become friends with the "lower class." In the restaurant where I waited tables, I was buddies with the kitchen staff , in the schools, I was friends with all the janitors, in the gyms I hung out with the maintenance and housekeeping staff. I found these people to be the most humble, wise, well rounded people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. It makes my blood boil when I see them treated so poorly by management. Just because they are not educated the same way or brought up the same way our culture has someone deemed them less than. Some of the most intelligent people I have ever met in my life never went to college. My Dad being one of them. Conversely, some people I have met in my life that have multiple degrees are some of the most ignorant. This is why I try never to generalize. As a society we are so quick to label and judge. What gives people the right to do this to fellow humans? We are all born into this world the same way and eventually we will all take an exit out of this world. What we do in between is subject to so much scrutiny. I was reading an article in "The Economist" about the relationship between ego and power and many people who gain positions of power do indeed start feeling as if they are better than everyone else and that the laws don't apply to them. Hence politicians who are caught with their pants down, don't truly believe they did anything wrong. Bill Clinton adamantly did NOT have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.
I wonder how many of these people who abuse their power were raised in poor households or households with strong morals and values about equality. I would like to believe that if I ever suddenly became powerful and very rich, I would still treat people the same as I always have but I can't really know or can I? Do I know myself well enough to feel confident that no matter the circumstances of my life, I will stay intrinsically the same? I've never seen that show, "Undercover Boss" but the concept is great and I think every executive should step into the shoes of their underlings once in a while to see what life is like in the trenches of their company. It would bring some much needed perspective into our world.God, I would LOVE to see my executive director do my job for a day - even an hour and watch her field complaints from members about the fans blowing in the wrong direction or the water in the fountain is not cold enough or the toilets don't flush properly. She would suck at it and it would be sweet justice for me to see her struggle.
I feel so grateful to have been through so much in my life up until this point because all of my experiences taught me how to be humble and graceful (at least sometimes). If I had only known comfort and stability I would be a very different person and definitely not so emphatic or aware. I like the part of me that has many friends from many backgrounds and cultures and races. My Facebook page looks like the UN and I'm proud of that. If you only talk to and are friends with like minded people, you are missing out on so much richness of life. I have learned so much from my friendships and relationships with those outside of my own race and culture and class. I don't know if its fear that holds us back from expanding out of our comfort zone but we should all do it to gain deeper understanding and compassion for our fellow humans. We are all in this messy, beautiful life together and instead of turning inward all the time, we should turn outward and try to help each other. I know that sounds very simplistic and naive but aren't the best things in life the simple things? We complicate life so much when we don't have to. I am guilty of this. I torment myself with every decision I make and for what? I must have been a seriously tortured soul in my former lives because I am an expert at it. I have such a strong sense of fairness and justice and equality that I sometimes think its a curse. I never feel like I am doing enough to change things for the better not only for myself but for the world. I think I just need to have a few glasses of wine and relax and take the weight of the world off my shoulders for a while. Or go to Costa Rica and build houses for poor people.
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